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June 21, 2006

12 Tips for Photoshop Text

This is one of those blog entries that start innocently enough, but which quickly become War and Peace in length. But take a second to scan it quickly if you find yourself setting text in Photoshop. Some of the tips will be familiar, but I’ll bet that others will strike you as new.[Update: Photoshop Grand Master Russell Brown has now created a video to show off these tips–plus four more, just to outdo me!]

Photoshop CS2 added a WYSIWYG font menu, so that you can preview fonts before applying them. But what if you want to cycle through fonts on the document itself? Select the name of the current typeface in the Options Bar, then hit the Up and Down arrow keys. That’ll cycle through the available fonts on your system.*

If you find that you’re setting the same style of text repeatedly (e.g. Times New Roman 12pt underlined, no anti-aliasing), create a Type tool preset. Click the tool preset icon (you know, that thing no one clicks in the upper-left corner), click the New Preset button, and you’ll record all your current font parameters. (This works with nearly all tools, by the way.)

It’s now much easier to change the settings for multiple text layers at once in CS2. Select the layers you want (Shift-click in the Layers menu to select a range, or Cmd (Mac)/Ctrl (Win)-click to select non-adjacent layers. Any changes you make to the font settings will apply to all selected layers. If you’re working with CS1 or earlier, this still works, but it’s a little more hidden: link together the layers you want to change, then hold Shift before changing the text properties.

If you want to curse less, hit Cmd-Return (Mac)/Ctrl-Return (Win) when you’re done setting a line of text. That way, instead of adding a line break (Return), Photoshop will commit the text edit.

If you’re setting paragraphs of text in Photoshop (e.g. comping up Web pages), and if the process consists of “type type type RETURN, type type type RETURN”–please, for the sake of your sanity, stop! You can simply click with the Type tool, then drag to create a text box (like this). This way, if you need to modify the dimensions of the text box, you don’t end up deleting & reseting tons of hard returns.

Okay, that’s cool, but what if you want to fill not just a box, but some irregular shape? Draw your shape with the Pen tool (making sure to have it set to draw paths), then hover near the inside of it with the Type tool. The cursor will change & you’ll be able to type inside the path, like this. What’s particularly nice is that the path & text stay editable, meaning that if you adjust the path, the text will reflow automatically.

Similarly, you can set text along a path. Draw the path, then use the Type tool to click near the outside of the path. Et voilá—text on a path in Photoshop.

Starting in Photoshop 6, it’s been possible to warp text by clicking the warp button on the Options Bar. Clicking it presents a range of options for warping type while keeping it editable. But did you know…

You can animate text warps. After creating a warp, create a second frame, change the warp, and hit the Tween button on the Animation palette. Boom–you’ve got something like this (but hopefully way less cheesy).

For more warping control of text, first convert the text into to a Smart Object (choose Layer->Smart Objects->Group Into New Smart Object). This provides two main advantages: you can apply a custom warp (pushing and pulling it freely, like this), and you can warp multiple text layers as a single unit. (Downside: you can’t animate a warp applied to a Smart Object.)

Illustrator CS2 has added a bunch of kickass typography tools–a good deal richer than what Photoshop offers. But because Illustrator now shares a type engine with Photoshop, you can set text in Illustrator using features like the Glyphs & Open Type palettes, then copy the text, paste it in Photoshop, and keep it fully editable. (Just make sure you select the letters in Illustrator, rather than the whole text object, before copying, and that you’ve clicked with the Type tool in Photoshop before pasting.) Or, if you have a lot of text in Illustrator, try exporting a PSD file (via File->Export). The amount that can be preserved–including text on a path & text in a shape–is pretty amazing.

Don’t blindly trust any program’s letter spacing. Take a minute to make sure your text looks decent, and adjust the kerning when letters pairs are too tight or loose. (Click between the letters, then Opt (Mac)/Alt (Win) + left/right arrow to adjust the kerning.) You may also want to see Geoff Stearns’ tips on setting good Web-res type. (The default settings for print-res work may not deliver the best results at 72dpi, and vice versa.)

Hold down the Cmd (Mac)/Ctrl (Win) key while you’re working on a line of text. This will let you reposition the text on the layer, without first having to commit your edit.

To select an entire string of text (everything on a layer), double click the layer’s thumbnail in the Layers palette.

Whew–hopefully some of that will prove useful to you. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some tips, so I may come back and update the entry later. If you’ve found tricks you find useful, please add them via the comments.* If you plan to do this often, you might want to go into Photoshop preferences and raise the number of undos, since each change of font counts as an undoable step.)

Comments

Excellent post! Two comments:
1. I don’t use the Tool Presets dropdown that you highlighted in #2 but I DO use the Tool Presets palette all the time. I hope this feature does not get abandoned; I think it just needs a bit more exposure in the UI.
2. The text tool’s cursor icons are hard to notice — for a whole version I didn’t know that the cursor showed me whether or not I was going to create a new text layer or edit an existing one. And until I read your post I didn’t know about Text-inside-of-a-path! I wonder how this type of functionality can be better exposed.

Thanks for posting these! I end up working with Photoshop’s type tool a lot doing mockups for the web, and just when I think I know the tool inside and out, a great list like this turns up exposing some other features that are less than obvious.
My favorite type tool feature that few people seem to know about (at least amongst the people I talk to) is that you can manually adjust the kerning and leading with the keyboard: alt+arrow keys left and right for kerning, to adjust leading select a line of text and alt+arrow keys up and down.

andrew Fox — 3:11 AM on June 22, 2006

Thanks for this. I have a question about type in Illustrator – will it ever be able to replicate the different styles of antialiasing (Sharp/None/etc) that Photoshop offers?
I use Illustrator as my main web design app, as I find it much better suited for this than Photoshop – except for this one difference.[Andrew, good suggestion. In the meantime, try selecting your text and choosing Effect->Rasterize, then specifying 72dpi, no anti-aliasing. The text should now look crisp/Web-like, while remaining editable. Does that do the trick for you? –J.]

4. also you can use return on the numeric keypad to commit text too.
11. alternatively move the cursor away from the text and it will change to a move cursor, you can then move your text without committing it.
thanks for the tips.
cheers
Tim[Good points, Tim–thanks. –J.]

Thanks for the reply John. I’ve used this technique a few times and this is great for pixel fonts (in fact for preventing antialiasing), but does not offer much more than the regular inbuilt antialiasing for normal text. Mosty this is fine, but sometimes it would be nice to fine tune the antialias style (as in photoshop). This could be added to the Rasterise plug-in, but it would be much handier (and Adobe-consistent) if it was in the Character panel. Cheers for the thoughts!

Wow, I have been wanting to do #6 for a long time now. I had no idea. Thanks!

Ivan Gomez — 6:29 AM on July 20, 2006

Great tip for distorting text. The method I use, is the Object>Envelope Distort command in Illustrator, then you can copy and paste into photoshop. Ah, it also works with images! the one advantage is that you have more control over the mesh in Illustrator than in Photoshop.

Juli — 11:24 AM on July 20, 2006

I have Photoshop CS, and when I go to print text, it always prints darker, and fuzzier like there’s a shadow when I didn’t put one on. Is there a way to fix this problem? Do I need to flatten the text or anchor it to the page? I have the dpi set at 300, and the text and images still come out fuzzy. If you have any suggestions, please e-mail me back!

kitty — 2:15 PM on August 24, 2006

my very first blog shows how frustrated i am that the super text effects i created in pshop 6 don’t get printed or translated to the business card format. any ideas? thanks.[Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by business card format. Would you elaborate, or supply a link to your blog? –Thanks, J.]

LincTheGreek — 4:59 AM on August 28, 2006

I want to know how I can add text to photoshop without it looking like i applied it with a jigsaw!! or worst still a ripsaw!! I know fonts come in many file formats, is there recommended format that stays clean around the edges in all sizes? I do not often if hardly ever use fonts\text in my photoshop usage, but it would be helpful to understand the limitations of using fonts within Photoshop CS2. Thanks in advance.

hi all !
is that possible to change the sample text of fonts, which is SAMPLE in default(in picture of hint 1, u can find this)
thanx in advance.[Unfortunately it’s not possible to change the sample text. That was on our to-do list, but it fell off the end. –J.]

Sara — 10:44 AM on September 12, 2006

Thanx that was so helpful

designer.H — 3:22 PM on September 12, 2006

Thanks for posting these !
actually I have a problem with text layer on photoshop …
but still nobody now how we can resolve this problem
If I finish the design and open it again the font of text layer make update and already the font change and I do not want after update the font change
……………….
and I am trying your steps but still same problem .
If you have good method to resolve this problem just tell me and I think you are professional you can do it
…………………..
thank you again
and I am waiting replaying[I’m afraid I’m not sure what behavior you’re seeing or what could be causing it. If you see a dialog asking you to update your text layers, it probably means you created those layers in an older version of Photoshop & they need to be updated to deal with a newer text engine. That shouldn’t be a problem, although sometimes the position of letters can shift a bit. If that’s producing bad results, you can say no to the dialog that asks you to update the layers. In that case you can simply treat them as pixel layers. Hope that helps. –J.]

designer — 3:16 PM on September 13, 2006

Hi thank you for post this
I hope there is a professional designer of photoshop to resolve
this problem
I have a lot of Job on photoshop but I have big a problem here
the problem a bout text layer
If I finish the design
and open it gain and try to adjust the text
it already the text make auto update
and the font change
and I do not like this
I hope there is someone know about this a problem
we need to resolve this problem
thank you
………………………………………….. …..
I am waiting replay me message

designer — 3:29 PM on September 13, 2006

thank you very mutch but
I want the photoshop deal with all the font like all progrme
” keep the kind of font without change ” and If I make the text as the normal layer then I can not make the change on the text
thank you agine and I am waiting replay the message .
……………..
note: I work on photoshop 7.0[In order to make important improvements to the text engine in Photoshop (supporting text on a path, text on a shape, file exchange with Illustrator, etc.), we had to update the Photoshop text engine in version 8.0 (CS). That’s the cause of the behavior you’re seeing. There’s nothing that can be done about it other than what I suggested previously. We thought it was worth a little pain in order to deliver a much better text engine. –J.]

Maybe this is addressed here and i don’t see it, but i’m wanting a new text layer to keep the formatting of the selected text layer – didn’t it do that in 7.0? Also, can i add point sizes (13,16,21,27) to the type tool menu?[I’d suggest either duplicating the whose formatting you want to preserve, or selecting the text, then making a tool preset for the type tool. I’d also expect that when you clicked with the type tool to create a new layer, the characters would use whatever formatting you were last using.
As for the second question, no, unfortunately there’s no way to modify the preset values in the list of point sizes. Good suggestion, though. –J.]

Rick Olson — 9:51 PM on October 11, 2006

For some reason I cannot seem to find an easy way to single space using the enter key when starting a new line. Usually holding shift down while hitting enter does the trick but it is not working now.
Thanks in advance.[Let me see what I can find out. –J.]

X-File — 9:49 AM on October 22, 2006

Thanks a lot for those tips.
My favorite is No 6. But I’ve got a little bit of a problem there: say, I want to fill text into a shape that’s not continous, like ones of the numbers 0, 4, 6, 8 and 9. How do I get the text to leave the space in between the shape?
Thanks in advance.[Hmm–great question. You want to fill part a shape, but not the parts where there’s a gap, right? In a bit of playing around, I’m not able to find a way to do this. I’ll give it some more though and will ask around. –J.]

pixelgal — 4:03 AM on November 06, 2006

Someone else asked this question and I can’t seem to find that it was addressed – Printing text from photoshop appears fuzzy. I had it set to anti-alias smooth, but perhaps one of the other options might be better. Without anti-aliasing it looks horrible. Id love to get close to the clarity of printing ms word text in adobe, but just dont know how to approach this problem.

mrmyth — 4:21 PM on November 11, 2006

I like to auto select layers when I’m working on a project, because I’m not so organized that I have labeled all my layers.
What drives me crazy is when I go to click on a text layer and it’s really hard to select. It gives me the error that says my background layer is locked.
Is there an easier way to select text or click in a text field to edit it? This hit and miss is killing me!
These things make my neck hurt!!![Hmm–I can’t think of a good solution offhand. We could make it possible to select text layers by clicking any pixels within them (e.g. the space inside the letter “A”), or within the bounding box created by ascenders and descenders. That would cause other problems, however (clicking a blank area and inadvertantly selecting nearby text). I’ll continue to give it some thought, however. –J.]

sodlpp — 6:21 PM on November 16, 2006

I have Adobe Photoshop 7.9. When I type, then push return, it does not go to the next line, it starts over fro the same line. it did not always do this, so how do i fix it?

Thanks for posting this list of tricks, I have one more trick that nobody knows about:
— Say you have your type layer and it has some text, colored black. And then you decide to re-color it to say gray or whatever. A cool way to do that is to select new color as your foreground color (I usually do it by using eyedropper tool, to maintain color consistent in my design) and then hit Alt+Backspace. Just like you fill any selection with foreground color, but WOW — this works for text layers also! And fill layers, by the way. I was really amazed when I have found this, and this is a great way to impress your friends who think they know Photoshop ;-)

Busy — 4:01 PM on December 20, 2006

I wanted to offer a suggestion for the “auto-select hit-and-miss” problem. Make it possible to select text layers by clicking any pixels within the bounding box created by ascenders and descenders, but only for text up to a certain size. Large text is much easier to hit so it wouldn’t need it as much, and I doubt I’d be hitting much small text by accident.
:)

Vy — 11:06 AM on February 16, 2007

I’m having problem on being able to see the text I enter in Photoshop. For some reason I can not see the text when I enter it. Please help….[I really need more info in order to be able to help. –J.]

Rena — 2:46 PM on February 21, 2007

i am having the same exact problem as Mr.Vy! Im trying to simply put text on an orange background. All my color palettes are black, and its not showing up. HELP!!!

Alan G — 5:24 PM on February 22, 2007

Several things might make the text impossible to see: 1) Your text layer might actually be below the top layer (check layers palette); 2) If you have made a text box (by clicking and dragging the text tool) your text might be too large to fit in the box, so it won’t be visible; 3) you might have a text size of 1 point (check the point size); 4) if you have a large baseline shift in the palette, left over from a previous text entry, your text could actually be outside the image area. As John says, a little more information would help narrow it down.

Della B — 10:21 AM on March 02, 2007

I’m having the same problem. I have Photoshop CS2. Here’s a simple scenario. Before opening a new document, I select the horizontal type tool. I choose Verdana font, size 24pts, color green, I create a new document, selecting the “letter” preset, RGB color, white background. My working RGB profile is set to sRGB because all my work is for the web.
I left click to start a paragraph, and open a wide bounding box in the document window.
The I start typing. No text appears inside the bounding box. Even after selecting the commit button, no text appears. The application behaves as though some text has been entered, but I can’t see it.
I can see the text in the layers palette, and when I run spell check, it finds mispelled words. The layer opacity and fill is at 100%.
Even if I use a transparent background, or a custom preset, I still can’t see the letters I’ve typed.

Della B — 10:59 AM on March 02, 2007

I solved my problem with text not appearing, but I don’t really understand the root problem.
In the palette with the “history” and “action” tabs, I selected the Actions tab. I opened the “default actions” folder, and scrolled down to an entry named “working with Type workspaces”.
I clikced on that, and one item was under it: “Select Workspace wotking with type”. I clicked on that. An alert box popped up: “The selected workspace will modify menu and/or keyboard shortcuts. Would you like to apply this workspace?”
I said OK (Why not?) and now I can see the text I typed.
I conclude that the problem was in a menu or keyboard shortcuts. I haven’t created any shortcuts, though, so I don’t know how the problem originated.
Incidentally, I tried ctrl/alt/shift upon opening Photoshop CS2 to delete my preferences file, as I read a couple of suggestions that it can become corrupt. I could never get an option to delete my preferences file. I could only get an option to set my scratch disk.

Steve — 8:38 PM on March 23, 2007

Can anyone help me? one day, i suddenly started getting a message saying ‘could not complete request because something prevented the text engine from being initialized’ whenever i try to use the text tool.

Greg — 11:25 PM on April 02, 2007

Great tips! I have a font-related question. I’m using WinXP and PS CS2. I have a document which uses a specific font. I want to modify a single glyph in that font, because I don’t like its shape. I make the change in a font editor (Font Creator on Win), save the font, and install it using its old file name. When I re-lauch Photoshop I get a warning that “Some layers need to be updated.” Replying “Yes” or attempting to access the text layer gives me “Couldn’t complete request due to program error.” Reverting to the unmodified font allows me to load the document with no problems. How can I modify a glyph and not have Photoshop balk at the change? Thanks.

Jessica — 10:25 PM on April 18, 2007

Having the same problem as sodlpp
I have Adobe Photoshop CS2 and when I use my text tool and press return, it does not go to the next line. Instead it types over my existing line of text. Please help!

Aron — 5:33 PM on July 23, 2007

can some 1 help me , i got some files from my friend so i can get different fonts but i dont know where to install the font files to can any 1 help me

dru philippou — 5:53 AM on August 06, 2007

When I click on the T (text tool) in my palette and proceed to type I get a horizontal line. Help. I use a mac. Adobe photoshop CS2.I want to be able to type text.

Steve Douglass — 8:04 PM on August 29, 2012

I’m having the same problem with getting horizontal line instead of text. Did you find a solution?

Tony — 6:43 PM on August 20, 2007

Hey Tim Clapham,
Thanks for the answer to my question. I’ve been trying to find out why my enter key has been committing changes instead of inserting a carriage return. No one ever told me that the numeric keypad enter and the regular keyboard enter are different.[They’re different on Mac; not sure about Windows. I consider this a feature, as you can choose whether to insert a carriage return or commit the edit. I can see how it might cause confusion, however. –J.]

Adam — 8:57 AM on August 24, 2007

Hi Tim
Great tips.
I’m using CS3. Can you tell me why tips 2 [tool preset] and 3 [editing multiple layers at once] don’t work together?
If I create a Type Tool Preset, then shift click some text layers, and then click the Type Tool preset… the settings for the type tool now reflect those of the preset, but the text in the document doesn’t change. But if I shift select and manually alter the settings, the content of the layers change. Odd.
If this process worked you could use the Type Tool Preset like a Type Style palette, but really, all it’s good for is adding new text.
Any thoughts or plans to add this functionality?

Trin — 2:48 PM on August 28, 2007

HI I NEED URGENT HELP
IVE GOT ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS2
AND WHEN EVER I USE THE TEXT TOOL AND TYPE, IT DOESN’T APPEAR, SO I CLICK THE LAYER I’M ON AND WHATEVER I TYPED GOES ONTO THE LAYER NAME
PLEASE HELP ME

Adobe Photoslop — 12:52 AM on September 22, 2007

I just had the problem with text not appearing in CS2, and the problem was the baseline shift wasn’t set.
Click the text tool, click the rightmost “Toggle Paragraph and Character Palettes” button on the toolbar at the top, in CS2 it’s two buttons to the right of the color (it looks like a folder). Then make sure your baseline shift and tracking are set to 0. Worth a try.

Hi!
I’m having a problem with spacing.
I’ve created a text box, and am not using enter/carriage return, but have HUGE spaces between the lines of text. I have played (experimented) with the different options on the flyout menu, but haven’t found the problem or any combination that seems to fix it. I’m sure this is really simple, but I just can’t find it.

Relic — 11:27 AM on November 08, 2007

Photoshop Pixelation of Text The Cure for this is use photoshop to create images, it’s not a font engine. Then when you’re done and want to add text save with layers, rasterize it, and throw it into Adobe Illustrator. That has the proper font engines to output something accurately to a post-script printer.-Relic

Myra — 7:26 AM on December 01, 2007

yeah hi i have photoshop elements 6.0 & im trying to put text right now but it doesnt seem to work…. i write down the text & it comes out very small….ive tryed fixing the size but nothing works.. can you please help me?

neso — 6:07 PM on December 07, 2007

Which is the shortcut to change text without having to click the type layer? eg. I move around on the layer palet with ALT+ [ & ] shortcuts. So when I am on some type layer and I want to change text of that type layer, what is the secret combination to do that?

I just installed photoshop on a new computer with Vista (I was previously using XP) and I found two really annoying problems suddenly popped up-
1. I will have a color selected for type (for my current project, it’s always black), but when I click on the document to begin typing, Photoshop automatically changes the color, always to something different!
2. I never register programs (no matter what they say, I just get sick of the junk mail) and it was never a problem before, but now EVERY time I open Photoshop, it wants me to register even though i always opt out. I tried both “Do Not Register” and “Register Later”
Advice?

Having the same issue as Della B. from back in March. His/her fix didn’t quite work for me, any other suggestions?
Thanks so much!
Shana

Lindsay — 3:08 PM on February 07, 2008

I am also having an issue with seeing the text in CS2.
My background is white and the font colour is black, I’m creating the text in the top layer, and I tried the above suggestions of selecting workspace action and toggling the Character palatte to no avail. I can see the text in the title of my layer, just not on the image itself. It’s worked for the past year and has suddanly stopped. I’m assuming I accidently hit a short cut, but I’m not sure what it was.
Thanks!

Vickie — 7:57 PM on February 10, 2008

Hi – just wanted to share. I had the same problem in CS2 with text not appearing in the text box, but it showed up as a label on the layer. The cursor was small & blinking, but it wouldn’t move. My problem was that I created the layer with the wrong resolution settings. It was set at 1 pixel/inch. I changed it to 72, and everything worked again! Hope this helps.

Paula — 12:35 PM on February 18, 2008

I’m having the same problem, I’m not able to see the text, I would like to try what Vickie is suggesting but not sure how to change the pixel/inch to the text layer. Can somebody explain please?
Thanks

Joel — 11:59 PM on March 01, 2008

Paula, got to File > New. Then change the resolution to 72. Close down Photoshop, open it again and it should work.

Candy — 10:42 PM on March 05, 2008

I had a problem with my text not showing up also. I finally figured out something…The text was larger than the text box but the weird thing is say my font is set at 10 pt. It is waaaay bigger than 10 pt. Help???

Ramón G Castañeda — 9:58 AM on March 06, 2008

Candy,
You should post in the Photoshop forum for your platform, Mac or Windows. Give them details about your setup. Maybe the document resolution is too ow?[That’s good advice. –J.]

Abhishek — 7:08 PM on March 10, 2008

Hi… great set of tips… especially the tool preset.
Had a query.. If i want to copy some text from a Word file to PS , and want to retain the source formatting, how do I go about it?

Hi !! thanks for the info !! one question.. is it possible to change Glyph in Photoshop ??

Derek Kimball — 9:57 AM on April 02, 2008

Thanks for the article. I have a question that I can’t find answered anywhere: IS THERE A WAY TO SELECT TEXT IN PHOTOSHOP TO WHERE THERE IS NO BOUNDING BOX AROUND THE TEXT? In my opinion, it gets in the way when you are cycling through your fonts and trying to see which one is fitting to your design. I always have to deselect my text every time i find a font that may be the one i’m looking for. Very irritating in my mind. If anyone has an answer to this, please let me know @ needforname@comcast.net

greg Geisler — 12:36 PM on April 02, 2008

Yes, you don’t have to select the text with the cursor. As long as you have the Type tool selected and are in the appropriate layer you can change face, color and all attributes without cursor-select. If your type IS selected with the cursor you can hit Command-H to hide the selection.

Lilly — 8:50 PM on April 02, 2008

Thank you so much Vickie!!! I was having a problem seeing my text in PS, and your advice was right on. My resolution was also set to 1 pixel/inch, and I took your advice and changed it back to 72, and now it works perfectly! Thanks for the great tip!

Jen — 6:11 PM on April 24, 2008

I am having an issue with my text appearing on top of the actual text box. When I click enter to go down to the next line, the new text will appear on the text that I would like on the line above. I have tried the paragraph spacing, they are both set to 0. Please help!

Lukas Engqvist — 5:08 AM on April 27, 2008

On thing that people tend to forget is that handling text for web or print is different. I saw a comment about wanting strong, crisp etc also to work in Illustrator. While for a pixel image this is good, because it tells what compromises are needed for low resolution while if you are planning to print your layout text is most crisp if it is in vetor format, and that means no pixel enhancements. (sharp or crisp) and that the text layer is on top. Ofcourse there may be design issues that want you to keep it rasterised, but in those cases you should consider working on a 600 or 1200 ppi file, so that you do actually get crisp text (especially if you are doing bsns cards with small text)

The solution for me was not to trash my fonts, reinstall my OS, or anything like that. I was able to fix photoshop CS2 in a few minutes.
Cured the following problems.
Missing previews on 50-60% of fonts on font menu
Error when trying to use text tool
Error tring to edit text on exiting PSD files
The full article along with the simple fix can be found in the Technical Support Section of Manta-2000.com

LewisCFC — 2:33 PM on May 19, 2008

I’m using version CS3, and I’m having serious trouble with using text. At first the text didn’t seem to appear, but i changed the font size to 72 pt, and now you can just barely see it, as if it is size 0.5 pt. Please Help!

Hi there
I’m having the same problems with not being able to see the text. it aint the resolution and i wasn’t able to find the option called “working with type tool..” under the defalut action option. I hate it when strange yet great problems which probably have very simple answers like this happen.
I’m in CS3 and haven’t made any option changes.

Hi again, for those of you who, like me, suddenly can’t see the text. and when it’s not the font size or pixels. Something that worked for me was to go to the character window on the right side and press the small arrow on the right side of that box. In the drop down menu got to the bottom and press “reset characters”. Might work doing it with the paragraph box as well…
happy to help ;)

Mickrick — 8:55 AM on May 28, 2008

Thanks, mads – the “reset character” tip worked a treat but it’s really frustrating when something like that happens and you’ve no idea why! Anyone shed any light on what happened and why a reset fixed it?

Ann Shelbourne — 8:13 AM on May 29, 2008

It could have been that your Leading was incorrectly set; and the Reset put it back to an Auto Leading value.

Erick — 4:57 PM on June 03, 2008

I downloaded Photoshop cs3 from Adobe..How do you install new text into the trial download?

Hey there;
I’m running Photoshop Elements 4.0, and like most of the people here, I’ve got text troubles – when I type, nothing appears, though it appears in the layer name. I can’t find how to reset characters or anything like that and it’s been bugging me for weeks.

Rob — 9:26 AM on July 09, 2008

Useless – I came here to find out how to make a text box and you dont even explain it past ‘use the type tool’ – err, wheres that dick head?

Gary — 3:05 PM on July 14, 2008

i have a problem. when i create a text layer and try to type, my text does not appear. i can click the check mark to apply text and the layer gets labled with the text i was trying to put in but the actual text does not show up. and when i open the file in paint or any other program it does not show either.my colors are all set right and my text color does not match the background. also my text layer is not getting moved under any other layers. please help me.

Rachel — 2:31 PM on July 16, 2008

Hi there! have Adobe Photoshop CS3 and when I use my text tool and press return, it does not go to the next line. Instead it types over my existing line of text. Please help!

firstly, great article and commented tips.
forgive if this was asked (i skimmed lightly)
is there any way to have multiple text-paths linked together so as to form a kind of paragraph?[Interesting idea, but no, not to my knowledge. –J.]
explained differently, i have a number of separate text-path lines with text (curved text) in different parts of the layout, yet i want the text to “spill” over from one text-path to the next in an order.
it seems you have to do a couple repetitive (and dare i say unnecessary) steps to build the different lines for each return. and when you have to change up the lines…
any tips are greatly appreciated. if no formidable solution exists, consider this my suggestion!
kind regards,
z

Dean — 4:17 AM on July 30, 2008

I THINK I LOVE YOU! LOL
Thank you for cheering me up, i am serious.
Typing up body text in PS, was truely sending me INSANE! LOL
It’s so comforting to know i am not the only one ! LOL
Peace :)

Monte — 9:22 PM on August 11, 2008

I’ve been using Photoshop CS since it came out, with no issues. Starting a week or so ago, when creating text, when I hit Enter to go to a 2nd line nothing happens. It’s like PS just goes to Never Never Land as far as the text is concerned, and no more text can be entered on that layer. It worked correctly for years prior to this. I uninstalled and re-installed PS, to no avail. I’ve tried the reset above, etc. Nothing.
HELP!!! (?) Please???[I don’t know what’s up here, but you might want to reset your app preferences (hold Cmd-Opt-Shift (Mac)/Ctrl-Alt-Shift (Win) while launching PS). –J.]

Monte — 5:42 AM on August 12, 2008

John, THANK YOU!!! That did it :) And a side benefit is that PS is loading about 3 times faster than it did before. BLESS YOU!!!

lovebug — 5:59 AM on August 12, 2008

Hi, I have a question to make! Recently I’m having a problem when trying to text something in Photoshop CS3 Extended version. I can’t seem to use the text tool since it always appears this message “Could not complete your request because something prevented the text engine from being initialized.” I reinstalled my PS but still nothing. I noticed previews of the fonts don’t appear when I try to select a font to use. It’s driving me crazy! Please, a help would be extremely appreciated. Thanks in advance.[Here are a couple of things to try.First, try uninstalling and re-installing the application / repairing. Typically, this problem occurs when some cleanup script or other thinks our spelling, hyphenation, or some other type data files aren’t needed and deletes them.If that doesn’t work, search for and delete “adobefnt*.lst” files on disk. These are the font cache files and may have gotten corrupted. That’s very unusual with more recent versions of Photoshop.If that doesn’t work, it’s likely a corrupted font installed – there’s a knowledgebase article on finding a corrupted font. You can find that on the Adobe website and follow it. –J.]

Chris Cox — 7:04 PM on August 12, 2008

lovebug – if resetting your preferences doesn’t solve it, then you have a corrupt font on your system (and Adobe Support would love to know which one and get a copy so they can figure out what it is messing up).

ee — 10:02 PM on August 15, 2008

I’ve been having the same problem with the text not showing up, actually it does but even when I raise the size the 72pt, it really looks microscopic. I have no clue what to do, my resolution is at 72….Any way to fix this……I actually have to raise the size to 1200pt just to be able to see a normal size 4 or 6 font….it’s very frustrating….

In Photoshop when you have a blinking cursor in some text, how do you quickly switch to the Move tool via the keyboard?

Dick — 9:36 AM on September 08, 2008

How can I remedy “scratch disc full”

Ramón G Castañeda — 8:15 PM on September 08, 2008

Dick,
You should be posting this in the Photoshop forum for the platform of your choice, Macintosh or Windows.
Ideally, you should have a dedicated volume for Photoshop scratch disk. I keep a dedicated 160GB internal hard drive for my Photoshop primary scratch disk.

Maria Z — 5:00 AM on September 23, 2008

Hi, I am trying to paste a large section of text into a photoshop document. But, either it gets pasted in correct format, with line breaks, indents, etc, kind of like an image, but not-editable, OR it gets pasted in with no line breaks whatsoever and I cant figure out how to create even line breaks other than manually going thru each line, which is wildly time consuming.
Can you help? I am pasting from word to CS2 PS. On a pc.
thanks!!

Cindi — 10:45 AM on October 29, 2008

Thanks so much for this informative post! I found it while googling switching to a new text tool while using the text tool. Love the tips! Thanks again!

Great tips on making the text readable. I too, was getting no space bar in the text box whenever I started a new text layer. I tried all the normal tricks (changing the resolution size, font pt, layering) etc, everything… and nothing was working. But then I checked the number setting of my paragraphs layout and for some reason it had something like –2689434439`() in the box… and no matter how many times I start up my Photoshop (CS4) it does that. Any tips on how I can save it permanently to 0pt for each paragraph setting? (It was also previously doing this on and off on my CS2 version) e-mail me at kpattz89@aol.com if you have any tips, thank you so much!!

this isn’t comments.
But i need some help to do with photoshop. suddenly I want to created the text from Photoshop and export to Dreamweaver, but without background. Yes i did start with Transparent for bg, but show white bg on Dreamweaver.
Plese forgive me if i’m wrong place to ask stupid question.
thanks for reading it.

Yuki — 8:11 PM on February 06, 2009

Hi, I’m using Photoshop CS4 on Vista and for some reason I can’t go to a new line when I hit the return button, it always seems to commit the text instead.
I think I’ve fixed it before when I had the problem on Photoshop CS but I can’t remember how I did it, I think it was a button you pressed right? Either way, I’ve tried looking through the comments here for an answer but couldn’t find anything ^_^;;; .
But in either case, this article was very interesting.

erin — 10:40 PM on May 28, 2009

Hello, to those of you who were typing and only saw a horizontal line (I had the same problem): try to change your font color to something other than white.
It was just that simple. I cannot believe how much time I wasted trying to figure that one out. :}

andy — 8:53 AM on June 10, 2009

Same problem as half the people on this forum, damn photoshop WONT GO A LINE DOWN WHEN HITING RETURN was working before then just magically crapped out on me, what is going on tried the fix somone gave resetting preferences, nothing

Funny how the ‘fix’ to having pixelated text (or fuzziness when printing text) is to not use photoshop for text applications. I’ve used photoshop for text app’s at 600- 1200 res for the last 12 years and never had a problem with fuzzy text until CS versions…. To those of us who are SOOO used to using photoshop for text – I suggest rasterizing your text then applying a sharpen filter to your rasterized layer. This doesn’t completely fix the fuzziness, but eliminates about 50% of at (at 1200 rez). Photoshop/Adobe really needs to go back to the text program the way it was before the ‘bending text, ‘path text etc was added. something got goofed up in the upgrade.

This is a great site. I tries some of the suggestions but they didn’t work. I’m new to PS CS4 and trying to figure out how to warp a one word text into my own shapes so that I can later change the “word” and still use my cutom shapes. Any ideas?
Thanks, Paulette

Thank you SO much for this useful article; I’ve spent maybe 4,000 hours working in Photoshop, and I just learned about two amazing text features that I didn’t even know existed! Nice page design too, btw. Again, thank you! :o)

adam — 6:11 AM on March 29, 2010

I know it’s possible (cos I did it by accident) but how can you preview a font using highlighted text without the text turning negative (ie white on black) ?
Thank you,
Adam

alex — 7:34 AM on April 15, 2010

FIX FOR NEWLINE PROBLEM IN CS4:
open type layer in layers palette, then click on options and choose “Restore palette”
this will effectevely bring the text palette back to auto settings

Tip #5 is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for being so concise and witty!

Vicky — 9:03 PM on May 11, 2010

have a question. I have a photo and I used a digital camera program to type in a text. I dont have that program anymore and wanted to know how I remove the text already on the picture with the photoshop.com on line? Can anyone help me and give me simple steps at a time to remove this embedded text?
Thanks for your help!!!!

toby — 1:14 PM on May 18, 2010

hi just a beginner with photoshop, have a problem thats driving me nuts. working on a file with multiple layers. most of my text layers i cant seem to be able to go back and edit. When i select the text type tool and click on the layer to re edit some text, the layer menu automatically opens a new layer and i cant access the original text layer. any help would be greatly appreciated

Sonja — 5:18 PM on June 01, 2010

THANK YOU for #4. Thank you, thank you, thank you…

steve — 5:07 PM on September 02, 2010

Hi i have started getting this annoying problem dunno how to get outof it.
When i use Horizontal text tool and type a line when i press enter it does not goe to the next line, instead i have to start a new para.
Which means i end up with 5 different layers of text to write one para. I hope i have explained this well. Can somebody help!! much appreciated

andy — 3:55 PM on September 11, 2010

I was having this trouble too, to fix it i went to the paragraph menu and changed the spacing after the return (to like 30pixels). This fixed it for me.. not sure if its the fix all though.

Itan vs Poet — 1:06 PM on January 14, 2011

I had the same problem. Was googling and came upon this site and andy was right: It’s not the fix all.

I noticed that instead of going into a line below the text came into the same line right over the already existing text.Of course, it was a mess.

What I did was, once the text box was highlighted, selected the Paragraph menu and changed the “set the leading” to auto.

Viola!

I hope this was of help to anyone wid the same prob.

Jokin Lopez — 9:22 AM on October 08, 2010

In my case the problem with the text not showing laid in the Image resolution. I am not sure if this has been said before, but it might help someone to say it again. I couldnt see the text i was typing and it wasnt selectable at all. although it did create a text layer. I checked my image size and the resolution was a ridiculous 1dpi.
i have to say i did get one of the images from the net. it must have been somekind of wrong saving. i turned the image resolution to the avarage 72 ddpi and then the text showed normally.

Nirman — 11:42 AM on February 25, 2011

Hello,

I want to replicate the clarity of text, that a browser can render, in Photoshop. bold texts are not clear in photoshop with anti-aliasing. Without anti-aliasing the text look jagged.

If I’m unclear here. The way the heading of this page “12 Tips for Photoshop Text” is looking in the browser does not look the same in photoshop. How to achieve that?

Thanks much!

Sofia — 9:27 AM on March 11, 2011

Just wanted to say thank you for the tips – really needed them!

Stevenwg — 8:32 PM on April 02, 2011

Hello, I’m new with AI(CS5). When I setup a new document color page, I can’t see the text or graphic that I’ve placed on the page. Example, My new document which I have “stimulate colored page” BLACK and when I type or paste in text or graphics, I can’t see them or the graphics become translucent, that’s I can see the back ground color.
Please advice, thank you !!

jazzybossa — 10:38 AM on June 11, 2011

I’m trying to create a book cover in photoshop from a .jpg of an artist’s image and taking it into InDesign but my text is looking really rough in ID. Its monotype corsiva, although Times Roman is just as bad. I’ve tried various anti aliasing and saving as EPS to no avail. Any advice gratefully received.

France — 5:55 AM on July 24, 2011

Thank you! I’ve been looking for simple instructions for irregular text paths, and yours did the trick!!!

Atwixtor — 7:49 AM on January 05, 2012

Any tips on copying text FROM Photoshop TO an HTML document? It seems forced line-breaks in Photoshop translate to unknown characters in a standard HTML document (UTF-8). Is there a setting to choose Photoshop’s text encoding?

Thank you for the advice, I have been using this to make text boxes for customer twitter pages. I like to add more info on the side bar and this is a perfect way to do so.

susan s. — 5:07 PM on March 16, 2012

Thank you, thank you, thank you for solving my most vexing text problem. The alt/com/shift solution worked. I wish I knew what I did to create the problem, but at least it’s fixed.

Davina Green — 4:15 AM on April 13, 2012

Great tips, but I wonder if anyone can help. When I’m typing text in a layer, I like to add line breaks on occasion, to seperate words on a heading, for example, but when I hit my Return key to start a new line, it commits the text!! I don’t want to commit the text at that point.
Just to be clear, this is my RETURN key that’s behaving strangely, not my enter key. As far as I can see this shouldn’t happen, and doesn’t happen on my other PC. Can anyone suggest a way of fixing this?